


fire fire

by lady__sansa_stark



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space Opera, Angst, But really: head the angst folks, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 10:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14893101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady__sansa_stark/pseuds/lady__sansa_stark
Summary: "I almost lost you.”Petyr’s arms were tight around her, and Sansa was at a loss for air again.





	fire fire

**Author's Note:**

> Another sentence starter prompt on tumblr: "I almost lost you."
> 
> [For my super lovely anon! And not to call you out, but I think you might have a thing for angst??? Not that I mind; I’m a sucker for writing it~
> 
> The title and inspiration come from the song “Fire Fire” by Steam Powered Giraffe.]

 

           “I almost lost you.”

           Petyr’s arms were tight around her, and Sansa was at a loss for air again. 

           She could still feel it. The coldness of emptiness, tugging on her suit as she reached for the station. Only, there wasn’t anything or anyone to propel her forward. Her screams and sobs were lost amidst the warning sirens blaring through the radio in her helmet:  _ warning – oxygen low – warning – oxygen low _ . She floated motionless, watching as the station drifted further and further away, barely a dot. Soon it would have been nothing but a speck in the blackness, another star, as far away from her as any other bit of life.

           Alone in the vastness of space. They were right when they said no one heard you scream. She still wasn’t sure it was her that was screaming, crying, praying to the gods that abandoned her. She didn’t want to die; not here, not cold, not alone. Please.

           But he didn’t. Sansa wrapped herself around him, pulling him into her as she felt shudders wrack through her body, echoed in her heartbeat. “I’m here, Petyr. I’m here.”

           “I know, Sansa. Thank the gods you’re alive.” His voice was muffled through the plastic visor, but she knew he was crying. Had been; his tears smeared the helmet. 

           Behind Petyr were the rest of the crew: men and women they had known for  _ years _ . A five year mission that was nearing its tenth anniversary. They shuffled their feet as they watched. Or, pretended not to.

           “They said you were  _ gone _ ,” came Petyr’s voice through her helmet. She wanted to take it off, but that would mean letting go of Petyr’s embrace. And right now, that bit of contact, that bit of warmth, was helping ease off the fear and cold. “They wouldn’t believe me when I said we  _ had _ to go back. Damn the storm, it passed, but you couldn’t–" his voice broke. “When I said you  _ weren’t _ dea-. That you couldn’t be– you  _ couldn’t _ . I just knew, sweetling, I  _ knew _ .”

           “Thank you, Petyr.” She had so much she wanted to say and too few words to say it with. 

           Eventually, Sansa pulled away enough to unhook her helmet, her fingers fumbling from the shock and cold and sudden repressurization of the station against her body. She listened to the dying hiss of air through the supply tube before it went silent. One minute – if Petyr had been one minute later, he would be holding up a corpse instead.

           There wasn’t time to shuck off the rest of the bulky suit before Petyr’s lips were on hers. Sansa forgot about everything else. The saltiness of his lips, the warmth of his fingers as he tangled them in her hair, the erratic beating of his veins beneath her own hands, as if his very life blood was shuddering from the relief of knowing she wasn’t dead. Or maybe that was her own blood, rebirthed from near-death. 

           Maybe her body assumed – like everyone else (everyone else except for Petyr) – that she  _ was  _ gone.

           Sansa fisted his hair, pushing his face into her and relishing in the heat of his body. She had to drive away the cold of emptiness. She hated the feeling: the black tendrils that wrapped around and around her legs, her arms, her chest, as she floated in its endless sea. Whispering sweet words of release from the confines of her fragile human body. Urging on her fears, and pains, and hopelessness - because the emptiness devoured it, relished in all of the ugly horrors like the sweetest nectar. 

           And Sansa had been so close to being a feast for it.

           Opening her eyes just a fraction, she saw the rest of the crew ambling away. Not because the crisis was over, or because Sansa had been recovered safe and sound; but because this  _ affection _ was one they whispered about behind covered mouths when they thought she and Petyr weren’t listening. For years. Ten years together they’d been stuck here. Ten years, and though there had been plenty of scandals aboard the station – there were hardly a dozen of them, and the station was as big as her home back in Winterfell, but even then it seemed too small, too confined – there was something about  _ this _ relationship that no one else liked. 

           Not least Harry, the only other astronaut that was near Sansa’s age. She had barely graduated from mandatory schooling when she applied for the program. Eighteen years, with so little chance of actually getting in with so many other applicants much more experienced than she was. Still – her salary (and a handsome figure at that) would go directly to her siblings. She imagined it more often than not: Robb and Jon not having to spend each of their waking hours toiling in the rocket factories to provide for them. Arya (against Sansa’s knowledge, and who only told her sister the truth  _ after _ Sansa announced she’d got in to the program) had been sneaking off to work in the factories, too. They liked her because she was small enough to weave through the machines. Arya was good at it, she said, the best.

           A testament of the fact that unlike the other children,  _ she _ was never caught between the grinding gears.

           But a five year mission through the stars to find a new planet to call home, all for the chance to give her own family the means to live on. Why wouldn’t Sansa take that opportunity?

           They were fine without her. They must be. Besides, she stopped crying about it after year three.

           That was around the time Petyr began showing his true colors towards her. As smart as the rest of their crew, and fitting the average of years, he only ever spoke to Sansa when needed, and with the exact amount of words necessary.

           Until he saw her crying.

           And though he tried (and failed) to explain it to her, Petyr  _ felt _ something pull inside his chest. Felt it wrap his arms around her like he was doing now. Felt something urge his lips to hers, and more. So much more.

           None of the others never did like the fact that she and Petyr got along  _ a little too well _ after that.

           It was looking to be a lifetime aboard the station. A solitary eternity Sansa wouldn’t have minded if it had just been her and Petyr. Soaring through the galaxies, looking for some new place to call home – and to never return from. She debated too often with the idea that her own family considered her dead. What did the news say of their mission? They lost contact halfway through year six, and none of them expected to make it through year seven let alone eight.

           Lucky, they whispered. They were lucky to be alive.

           Sansa inhaled oxygen – sweet, thick oxygen, deep breaths that burned her lungs – as she pulled away enough from Petyr’s lips to remember to breathe. His hands held her up as much as they held her against him. It always took some time before her legs readjusted to the gravity on the station. But that was when she was outside for no more than thirty minutes.

           This had been  _ hours _ .

           Sansa choked back the tears as she smiled. A true smile, one she only gave Petyr and he her. She recognized them in the way the corners of his eyes crinkled, in the little spark that shone through mossy green. “Thank you. For coming back for me.” She must have said it a thousand times already, but there would never be enough times to be right.

           Petyr thought the same, leaning in to place the softest kiss to her lips. “Always, sweetling. I could never leave you.”

           “I know.”

           They slowly shuffled their way through the outer pressure chamber into the inner one, Petyr helping Sansa peel off the rest of her spacesuit. There were abrasions along the arms and legs where the asteroids hit her. A dent in the back of her helmet, one she hadn’t even realized when a raging storm of asteroids swirled around her thick enough she couldn’t make sense of up or down. The back cable was shorn so close to the suit, Sansa shuddered thinking how  _ close _ she’d been to dying. 

           No. Not now. She didn’t want to think about that. Right now, alive. With Petyr. Oxygen bursting in her lungs and warmth flooding her fingers and toes.

           Petyr peeled off his own sweater, tugging it over Sansa and trailing his hands over the sleeves where they dwarfed her own hands. He sandwiched hers, bringing it up to his mouth to breathe hot air over her fingers. Sansa shivered as the heat swept down the sleeve, all the way down her arm and up her shoulder and straight into her chest. She felt it ease its way through her ribs and swirl around her heart. It was comforting; he was so sweet. Petyr did the same with her other hand.

           “Better?” he asked, smiling at her. There it was: that bit of twinkle that made him look as young as when she first spied him a decade ago.

           Sansa couldn’t fight the smile on her lips, and she didn’t want to. “Always.”

           “Attention all crew,” came the staticy voice over the tannoy. Sansa looked up at the speaker, picturing the heavy lines and stern brow of Oswell. He was a quiet man, and so rarely did she hear him speak that the first time she did she jumped to the ceiling. He was the closest thing to Petyr she had to a friend, if only because he was the least  _ bothered _ by their relationship.

           Petyr was staring away, too, confusion on his face evident by the squeeze of his hands over hers. A touch that made her think, in his lilting words:  _ something’s wrong _ .

           Oswell finished, the almost-calm of his voice before gone in a sudden roar: “Please move into the inner station and prepare for emerge– oh  _ fuck _ – it’s back!”

           The final echo was still ringing in Sansa’s ears when she felt the station shudder.

_ No! Please gods, no, please tell me he’s wrong _ .

           She and Petyr glanced at each other.

           Another shudder, more violent, sending Sansa falling backwards from Petyr’s grip. He lunged for her before she hit the ground. Except another collision had him falling backwards into the outer chamber.

           Just as the locks engaged.

           “Petyr!”

           Sansa scrambled up from the ground, cursing the jelly in her limbs as she fumbled up the heavy door to the latch, pulling as hard as she could. Petyr was doing the same on the other side. She felt the vibration of his fist pounding on the door, but she couldn’t hear his screaming words:

_ Get back, Sansa! _

           “No!” she yelled back, trying again and again to get that blasted latch to move. Even as the room started flashing red and white, even as the station was shuddering beneath her feet too fast she couldn’t do much more than hold on to the door – even as she silently prayed to the gods for a  _ mercy _ – the locks remained shut. “Please, Petyr!” And behind her, she yelled, “Open the fucking locks! Petyr’s trapped! Please, someone! Fucking someone!”

           Back to the door. Petyr was doing the same, holding on, but his arms weren’t trying in vain to open the door anymore. He knew – it was writ plainly on his face. The fear, the anger – all of it, emotions Sansa felt hurtling inside her own chest. Her throat was raw as she yelled, “I’m going to go get help! Wait right here, please. Petyr, I…”

           He shook his head.  _ I’m sorry, Sansa. _

           “Don’t say that!” She was crying. Wished she could wipe the tears away if not for the violent shocks against the station. The lights were blinding and the sirens were wailing – and something else was screaming, or someone, or maybe it was just her. “Don’t! Please! You saved me, now I’ll save you!”

           Petyr’s smile was so fucking  _ sad _ she hated it more than she hated herself for not being able to do a damn thing. It was an emergency protocol, she knew, the same one that caught her unawares when the storm hit them the first time. She’d been out on repairs, stuck in the middle of it when the asteroids hit. 

           She’d been knocked away into the vastness of black and twinkling stars. Gods, she once loved that sight: a million pinpricks of light against the darkness, calling out for her as Sansa pointed to them and named them for Bran and Rickon. Bran’s dreams of exploring space had been shattered along with his legs – because, like Arya, he thought to help the family. Only, he had been so young, and hadn’t been so lucky.

           But Sansa  _ hated _ them now, those same damned stars that watched her cry as she floated further away from the station.

           She pounded on the door, screaming jolts of pain running up her arm. “It’s going to be okay!” She yelled over the sirens. “I promise. We’ll be okay.”

           Petyr was still smiling at her, but his eyes –  _ fuck _ – were clouded with tears. 

           He managed to pull himself up to the thick window, and placed a kiss to it. Sansa pushed herself into it, hating the cold, hardness of the glass. Hating that she tasted her tears that slithered down her face.

           This close, she could see the goosepimples lining his bare arms. This close, she could see herself in Petyr’s eyes, and she looked just as terrified.

           An asteroid tore through the roof of the outer chamber, snapping wires and pipes in half before exploding into a thousand shards. Some of them stuck in the window.

           And the room was on fire.

           Petyr was on fire.

           Clutching his throat as he held on to the last breath of oxygen – one with the ghost of her own breath, her kiss. Kept it at bay from the fire licking up his skin greedily.

           He didn’t have the oxygen for it, but it was in his eyes.

_ Goodbye, Sansa. _

           Another asteroid, so much bigger, tearing half the far wall and door off in a screech of metal that vibrated the entire station.

           Sansa was crying, she knew, but she couldn’t hear it over the warning sirens, or the pounding of her hand – bruised and bloody – against the fractured window, or the sudden stillness of her heart.

           Petyr was floating. Floating, far away through debris and rocks towards the stars, his body covered in flames.

           At least he wouldn’t die cold.

           Sansa wondered if  _ that  _ had been the sick sort of  _ mercy _ from the gods as she lost sight of his burning body through the haze of her own tears.


End file.
